


A Tunnel of Flame, A Handful of Ash

by Who_Needs_Reality



Series: there's more than space between us [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Season/Series 05, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 12:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14472921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”“What I have to,” she grits out, “like always.”“We talked about this,” Bellamy says tightly, arms crossing over his chest, “and you’re not going tojust go running off into this alone.”“Why not? I’ve handled everything like that for a while and it worked out.”ORBellamy and Clarke argue about the next mission, and about other things as well.{Season 5 Angst}





	A Tunnel of Flame, A Handful of Ash

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super short drabble I had knocking around for a while, but I recently had a breakdown over how Blarke-applicable certain lines from The Winner's Trilogy are so I tweaked it slightly to incorporate one in particular, points if you spot it. 
> 
> Also, I provide a wee bit of plot context for what's going on but this isn't me guessing at how canon plot will unfold, I more just wanted a conversation like this to take place.
> 
> I wrote this on 0 sleep at an obnoxious time of night with no editing, so be gentle,
> 
> Title and inspo from The Winner's Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski

He sidesteps in front of the door to stop her from leaving. It infuriates her, sets her eyes glinting viciously, but he doesn’t flinch. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What I have to,” she grits out, “like always.”

“We talked about this,” Bellamy says tightly, arms crossing over his chest, “and you’re not going to just go running off into this alone.”

“Why not? I’ve handled everything like that for a while and it worked out.”

He feels a muscle in his jaw tic. Nothing since reaching the ground has been easy, but this is by far the biggest strain. War is brewing again, and he’s convinced Octavia to hold off on attacking Eligius for at least a little while longer -- instead, they’re going to take out the army that their rivals have in cryosleep. Someone needs to get into the camp, break into the cryogenics room when the guards are between rotations, set off the timer on the bomb Raven cooked up, and get the hell out of there before it goes off. It’s a quick, certain way to gain an advantage and levy the odds in their favour, if they can manage it, but the job is difficult, dangerous. 

And Clarke’s determined to be the one to do it.

“This isn’t a one person hit-job, Clarke, you’re not just hunting an animal or something!”

She scowls at him. “You think I don’t know that? I know it’s going to be hard, Bellamy! But I also know that this  _ is  _ a one-person job. The security set-up they have there will clamp down on a group in seconds. It needs to be a stealth job.”

“So let Echo go,” Bellamy snaps, “she’s a spy.”

“She  _ was _ . Six years ago. And in case you missed it, the terrain’s changed just a little since then.”

“Fine,” he snaps, “then it should be me.”

“No.”

He stares at her, incredulous. “No?”

“Why  _ should _ it be you? Because it’s your plan, or--” 

“Because Eligius won’t be looking out for me!” he snaps. “You know they want you and Madi for information, they’ve already tortured you for it, and now you want to just  _ go  _ to their camp?”

“Me having that information is exactly why I should go! I’m the only one who knows the area well enough!” 

His eyes rove across her face, searching and frantic. Bellamy knows things haven’t exactly been smooth between them, not since he sided with Octavia on having Madi trained as a nightblood novitate -- if she wanted to be -- despite agreeing that it could be dangerous. He’s tried explaining to Clarke that he’s not unaware his sister’s become volatile and ruthless, but he thinks using the nightblood line to perpetuate the idea that a solid and familiar line of succession is in place will help quell the unrest between the Grounders and their clan divides. They don’t stand a chance in any wars if they’re fighting amongst each other. Bellamy had insisted that none of them would let anything happen to Madi, that she’d be a figurehead more than anything else, but he couldn’t forget the look of betrayal on Clarke’s face when he’d agreed with Octavia, outvoting her.

“You can’t be serious.”

“If I don’t get caught,” she says, adjusting her grip on her rifle, her fingers running over the ridges where she’s carved names, “then it won’t matter. And what, you think they’ll just let you go if they catch you?”   
“I got away from them once,” he reminds her, thinking of how he held their commander at gunpoint until they let Clarke go and lowered their weapons. It had been the first time he’d seen -- or believed -- that Clarke was alive after six years, it isn’t a moment he’s likely to forget.

She fixes him with a hard stare. “You caught Diyoza by surprise once, when she’d barely been on the ground a day. You really think she’ll be that careless and you’ll get that lucky again?”

“Even if I don’t,” he challenges, “what’s to say you will? They caught you once.”

“I gave myself up,” she says, “so Madi could get out of there.”

He slams a hand against the doorframe in frustration. “I get it, okay? We’re all in danger, and something needs to be done, and you think you’re the only one who’s responsible for saving Madi, for saving your people. But God, Clarke, you’ve done enough! You gave your life for us to survive! We’re only here because of you. And I know you just got them back and you’re scared of losing them again, but they’re my people too, alright? so I’m not going to leave this to you just--”

“ _ That’s  _ what you think this is about?” she scoffs at him, face twisted in disgust. “My  _ people _ ?”

“Well I don’t have any better ideas!”

“My  _ person _ , Bellamy, I can’t lose my  _ person _ ! Everything I did, I did for my people, but when it came down to it, when it was just me and my kid and a planet full of ghosts, I wasn’t just missing my  _ people _ ! It wasn’t pretending to talk to my people through a radio that kept me from going insane!  _ You  _ did, Bellamy! It was  _ you _ . You were my person, okay? You were everything to me and you kept me alive even after you were gone so please get off your fucking high horse and stop thinking you owe me shit because you don’t!”

He blinks like he’s been slapped. Maybe he has been. “You--you spoke to me?”

She laughs, high and humourless. “Every day for six years. Because whatever shit this hellscape threw at me seemed slightly more bearable if you were alive. Everything was better if I could imagine you were there. I needed you, Bellamy, I have for a long time, and I still do.”

He opens his mouth, starts to speak, but she cuts him off so viciously he starts.

“ _ Don’t _ ,” she spits, “don’t you dare tell me you need me too. You don’t. You haven’t for six years, and maybe even before that.” She lets her shoulders drop when she sees his face, laughs again, softer and sadder this time. “And don’t get me wrong, that’s good. That’s why you survived, and made sure the others did too. That’s why you have your family.”

Something in her voice makes his chest feel like it’s on the verge of caving in. “Whatever it is you’re trying to say,” his voice comes low and uncertain, “don’t.”

Clarke shakes her head. “You’ll do whatever it takes to protect them, okay? I get that, I get why you wanted Madi to train, I get why you feel like you have to do this. But you don’t.”

“Neither do you! We can talk about this and figure it out. Together.”

She winces, physically flinches like he’s thrown something at her. “Bellamy,” her voice has gone quiet, and even after all this time it scares him, because it’s the low, unmoving quiet that means she’s decided something, that she’s not going to change her mind. “You’re happy,” she says.

It’s the last thing he expected her to say, given the circumstances, and it must show on his face, because the corners of her mouth tug upwards in a wry grin.

“Or, you have been. You guys had each other up there and you have each other down here, and even if things change on the ground, you’ll never stop being family, you’ve been one too long for that.”

He and Echo had called things off soon after reaching the ground, when it became clear that the people they were on Earth and the people they’d had to be in space were too different for them to make sense. Murphy and Emori still couldn’t stand in the same room as each other without lashing out in an effort to make the other feel  _ something _ . Raven’s barely spoken a word to anyone since they had her make the bomb, furious and heartbroken that they effectively made her decide between them and Zeke, and according to Harper, Monty can’t sleep anymore for fear of nightmares anymore. But Clarke’s right -- they’re a family; that’s never going to change.

“You’ll always have each other.” She wets her lips. “All I have, in the way that matters is Madi. And you.” 

“You think you don’t matter to me?” the words seem so foreign he can barely pronounce them, “is that what you’re saying?”   
“I’m sure I do,” she laughs, and then her voice breaks, “I know you’re grateful for what I did, even though you don’t have to be. And I know--” she looks away from him, averts her eyes, and it kills him because he can’t see her, can’t look into her, can’t even begin to guess where these things she’s saying are coming from. “I know you’ve spent six years moving on and forgetting, and that’s  _ good _ ! I didn’t just want you to survive, Bellamy, I wanted you to live and be happy because if you were, then it was okay. Whatever was going on with me was fine.”

“You really think it was that easy?” he rasps. “You think I just lived happily ever after and never looked back?”

“I think,” she says, looking at his feet, “we both did what we needed to to go on. And that meant I needed to believe you were alive and you needed to remember I wasn’t.”

He stares at her. Bellamy can’t follow the shape of the words, can’t understand what she’s saying.

“I’m saying--” he must have said the words allowed; he hadn’t heard -- “that someone needs to go on this mission or we’re all screwed, and whoever goes might not comeback. And the thing is…” she takes his hand then. It jolts him out of his reverie, makes him stare at the place where they’re joined like the universe is balancing on it. “If I die, you’ll be fine. Maybe you’ll mourn, but you’ve done it already. Maybe you’ll feel guilty, or like you should have done something, you’ll think you could have changed it. But you already know how to get past that. Maybe,” she manages a chuckle, thin and watery, “maybe you’ll even miss me. But by this point, you’ve probably forgotten how to. And….none of that is true for me, okay? I don’t know how to keep on going if you’re dead.”

She squeezes his hand once, runs her thumb across his knuckles.

“I’m saying that if I die, you’ll survive. But if you die, it’ll destroy me.”

Clarke raises her hand to her lips, and presses a butterfly kiss to the back of it, so soft and brief he doesn’t realise it’s there until it’s gone. 

“Look after Madi for me,” she says, voice gone thick, “tell her I’m coming back. And if I don’t make it…” she shrugs, offers him a quiet, half smile, “well I always figured it’d be your turn to come up with her bedtime stories when you got back.” 

And then she pushes gently past him, disappearing into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Drop me a kudos/comment if you enjoyed <3 I might write a follow-up to this but idk yet so we'll see.


End file.
